Advice needed for son, younger non asd sibling

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Firstly hello Secondly, I'm looking for advice ! I am a 33 year old mom with adhd/ocd/anxiety and my son who is 8 has autism/anxiety, my youngest son is "NT" they say, but mother knows best, and I think he is exactly like me! There are ZERO programs here to help siblings with autism, he is more difficult to calm down sometimes than my asd child. His development has been regressed because they are ALWAYS together, he copies his older brother so it feels as if i have 2 on the spectrum. He needs so much more attention due to jealousy and he is turning 6 in a few weeks. anyone have any advice about what i can do to help him not feel so angry/jealous of his brother? He gets to do LOTS more than my son with asd but he doesn't see it ( very thick headed like his mom lol )

thank you!

How about arranging playdates that don't involve his brother? Then he could be around other kids. I think it is important for siblings to have separate spheres where they can explore who they are outside their family roles.

No advice, just commiseration. My NT child has picked up a lot of aspie-ish communication styles this summer, which I'm hoping will go away again once school resumes. She's started coming up to me and spouting lengthy monologues without even first identifying the subject. This is how my ASD son talks to her much of the time. Also, because it's necessary to be very blunt and straight-forward in order to a) get my son's attention and b) make sure he understands what you're saying, she has become pretty rude in her approach to people in general.

No advice here either. When I was a kid, I was picking up on abnormal behaviors in my class and mimicking them. My parents found that out and they had the luxury to remove me from that situation because I was in a self contained classroom so they put me in mainstream where I would learn appropriate behavior. I can't imagine how hard it must be if you have a special needs child that isn't able to act "normal" because you can't remove your other child from that situation because they live there too. It's like either that kid goes or your special needs kid. If you had other "normal" kids, then perhaps that would have helped with your youngest but I think play dates sound like a good idea and maybe when your kid starts school, he might learn appropriate behavior because he will see kids don't act like his brother and he will figure out his brother is different. But when I was a kid, I didn't figure it out, I just thought that was how we acted in school. Then when I was in mainstream for PE, Library, and Music, I just thought we acted different in that class and then I would be back to "normal" in my self contained classroom. So it was like I had split personalities. I am sure the aide in my classroom picked up on this in me and agreed with my mother she might be right that I don't belong in there so she helped my mother get me out of that class. But I hear this behavior isn't uncommon in special ed so that is why parents want their special needs kids in mainstream full time especially if they are HFA or AS. But I think pretty much everyone does this, for "normal" kids, they call it peer pressure. That is why parents have to watch who their kids are friends with and who they are hanging out with and get to know their friends. With disabilities, it might be a bigger deal for parents like it was for mine. But we have to remember that everyone does this.

Young children don't understand disabilities so it's hard to explain to a child why another kid is allowed to do something and they aren't especially if that kid is older than they are. If they had a psychical impairment, then it's much easier to explain because you just tell them sometimes even body parts don't work just like how toys don't always work and electrical equipment, even humans can be broken. When I was 10, my mom used to just tell me a person had problems to explain why they were acting a certain way. That told me the person wasn't normal so their behavior is wrong. I wonder if it's possible to explain to a young child that brains can be broken too so it makes it a kid not act right and makes them act a certain way and their brains work so they don't act that way and they know how to not act that way. Would that help? Also make sure to tell them to not ever tell that other kid they are broken or else it will hurt their feelings and make them upset.

My first thought is, this will be fine. Your younger kiddo is about to go off to school. First grade, right? So a full day of NT kids all over the place. He will fall in line really quickly if he is NT.

Remember how long the summers were when you were a kid? Its been forever in his mind since he was immersed in a NT environment. NT kids adapt. Its what they do. So, its actually pretty normal of him to have adapted to the ND world you've built to support your older son.

I would send his new teacher a note explaining the situation to her, and asking her to both make some allowances in the first few weeks, and keeping a close eye on whether he adapts to her classroom smoothly.

If he's going into kindergarten, and its only a half day program, that might still be enough. But I would start to work with the school to explore if he does have special needs and if the full day program might be best for him. Its hard with these babies, because you don't want to over work him. But if he needs more exposure to NT kids to develop his best self, school is probably the place he's getting it the most.

At home, I would work your younger son into the same kind of behavioral supports you do with your older kid. Why not include everyone? If there is a schedule, put the younger kid on it too. (Or give him his own.) If there is a reward for certain behaviors, make a target behavior appropriate for your NT son and reward him for that too.

There is no reason why behavioral interventions have to be punitive, or only for autistic kids. Its good stuff for humans.